Notes

"Stir Mesh" seems to me to be a very accurate name for this CD. What we have here is extremely far from every sound I have heard elsewhere. The frequencies are totally saturated, yet stay precise and relatively quiet. Obvioulsy not produced with a normal synthesizer or sampler, this reminds me more of what a damaged audio file might sound like, or a text file transfomed into an audio one. The sounds used here vary very quickly and are all scraping and grinding, saturated to the limit of what your loudspeakers are able to render.

But don't imagine "Stir Mesh" as some kind of loud, noisy and blurry chaos. The tracks are very sharp and precise, and these weird digital frequencies are used more as clicks than as scapes, making the whole thing sound closer to Oval or to some click'n'cuts release than to harsh noise. This doesn't mean, however, than "Stir Mesh" is sweet and soft, the sonorities and tones used being really out of the norm, and the album being totally atonal.

Far from sounding too abstract, Kotra manages to create an enjoyable album that will still make a lot of exebrows raise with surprise. This is the perfect contrary of droning, a game a microscopic and sharp clicks, of mastered saturation and defitinely something that opens new doors.
[recycle your ears]

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A glitch-filled collection of electronics, this disc by Ukrainian artist Dmytro Fedorenko sets out early to hit you heavy and hard. The glitches are raw, the beats are sparsely constructed poundings, and the accents are high-pitched squeals of aural mayhem. ItÂs all far too much to take in a single sitting. Here we have close to 50 minutes of similarly constructed tracks, and there is no respite from the noise whatsoever. The sounds lay heavily on oneÂs ears, and no matter what volume the disc is played at, the intensity is unavoidable. Everything glitches, everything is interrupted, nothing is left to linger. Rhythms start and stop whenever they feel like it, leaving me with little time to get acquainted with them. There is no depth to the production: nothing to fill the air with any amount of hope. There is only glitch, beat and noise, the only elements present that combine to make a frustrating and disappointing experience.

[Vils M DiSanto]